CWU Students Prepare For Regional SHRM Competition

March 30, 2005

Contact: Dr. James Nimnicht (509-963-2455/fax 509-963-2875/e-mail: nimnicht@cwu.edu)

ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Two Central Washington University student teams are getting ready to represent the university at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Pacific-West Regional HR Games April 15-16 at California State University Sacramento.

The competition involves a series of game-show style matches between teams, of up to three undergraduate students, which answer questions in categories similar to what is found on the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification exam. Those areas include management practices, selection and recruitment, training and development, compensation and benefits, employee/labor relations and health, safety and security.

The teams with the best records advance to the championship round.

The Central squads qualified for the regional tournament after placing first and second at the Northwest Human Resource Management Association (NHRMA) championships earlier this month (MARCH 5) at the University of Washington.

Team CWU-2, which came in first, was comprised of Kristine Foreman, a senior from East Wenatchee who is majoring in human resource management, and Becky Gubser, junior, Ellensburg, independent studies.

Three senior, human resource management majors - Morgan Barry, Ellensburg, Jessica Bullard, Snohomish, and Aaron Harvey, East Wenatchee - were on Team CWU-1, which took second.

Drs. James Nimnicht, Nancy Graber Pigeon and Ruth Lapsley, CWU business administration professors, serve as faculty advisors and coaches for the teams.

If a CWU team places among the top two at the regional competition, it would advance to the national HR Games finals June 19-20 in San Diego, which will be held as part of the SHRM national conference. Central was also the former Area 5, now Pacific-West Region, HR Games champion in 2003.

Founded in 1948, SHRM is the world's largest association dedicated to human resource management. It has more than 190,000 individual members worldwide, and 500 affiliated professional and student chapters within the U.S.